Andrei Konchalovsky's Runaway Train - a Great Cannon Film

Andrei Konchalovsky's

Runaway Train

(1985)

Andrei Konchalovsky

A review by Rogert Ebert

Lobby Cards

Watch the trailer on YouTube

Artwork

Soundtrack information

Runaway Train –excerpt from the production notes:

"You have to be an optimist to make a film about trains." director Andrei Konchalovsky states.

"Working with trains was very difficult, dangerous, and complicated. The engines were an enormous amount of steel, very difficult to stop, and treacherous to work around."

The film company took extra precautions to insure the safety of the crew. Not one shot was taken without everybody securely rigged or hooked to the moving train. They even hired trained mountaineers to guarantee that everybody who worked on the train was properly strapped.

The train sequences were filmed on the seward main track of the Alaska Railroad, which runs from Seward, through Anchorage, and up to Fairbanks. The company shot on locations 60 miles up the mountains, with no roads, and were only accessible by helicopter or train. It was a wild environment, where bald eagles, moose an jack rabbits were seen almost daily.

Filming on the main track created a unique problem. Other trains were coming through on it. In the words of Ted Hewitt, the Alaskan railman assigned to the film, "The normal train traffic runs as it is supposed to. The movie train has to take to a siding and be clear of the regular train."

Therefore, three cameras were used to film most scenes. "It was necessary," Hume stated, "While making a run on a track, we had to get as many shots as possible before another train came through."

The filmmakers wanted to give the film a cold, severe look. And although the film was shot in color,

they have given it a black and white look with traces of color added. This, they felt, would highlight the contrasting majesty of the Alaskan mountain wilderness, with its bleak trees and black rocks against the white of its snow. And it also heighten the image of the monstrous black train hurdling down the tracks under the bright white sky.

It was Konchalovsky's decision to make "Runaway Train" look as much like a documentary film as possible. Therefore, Hume and and camera crew placed their cameras in awkward positions, to make the picture look as uncomposed and spontaneous as if you just hung out the window with the camera, or were hanging by a piece of string on the edge of the train.

The prison sequences were filmed on location at the historic Old Montana Territorial prison in Deer Lodge, Montana, which was built in 1870, and was an operating prison until six years ago...

The remainder of the film was shot in train yards and studios in Los angeles. The company also filmed in another historic landmark, Hollywood's Pan Pacific Auditorium, which currently is closed and awaits restoration. In this 400 foot wide, 200 foot long structure, they built an exact replica of the trains' engines and interiors, complete down to their rivets.

They were constructed so they rocked backwards and forwards, and even twisted. Their couplings could be coupled and uncoupled,...even their speedometers worked."

Cannon Tottenham Court Road (London) showing a great Cannon Film.

Magazine article from April 1986

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Interesting item on the auction site, eBay

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Thanks to Martin Dusashenka for the great cinema façade photo.

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